We are hanging the work at Dutch Design Week today! At the show, opening tomorrow, we’ll be showing off our new circular materials and products for the very first time. To whet your appetite we’re giving a sneaky peak of the 6 Master Case ‘stories’ and the innovative sustainable materials and products we’ve developed. Next up, the Reborn - Reworn baby jacket.

Master Case summary

Polyester fleece was revolutionary in the 80’s but is now known to be hugely harmful to the environment due to the shedding of microplastic particles. This natural fleece is made of soft and warm micro-fibres, produced from recycled cotton textiles, that will not accumulate in the environment.

The challenge

Polyester fleece was a breakthrough new material when first produced in the 1980s as an alternative to wool. Since then, it has become a popular and inexpensive choice for children’s clothing due to its warm, quick-drying, easy-care properties. It is now known that during washing polyester fleece causes damage to the environment by shedding microscopic plastic particles into the waterways, polluting the oceans and the entire food chain, and causing untold damage to the health of many living creatures, including us.

In Trash-2-Cash, the designers asked if fibres fine enough to replicate the soft warmth of polyester fleece could be developed by the fibre scientists. The fabric needed to be made from textile waste and be recyclable at the end of its useful life. Most importantly any fibres that broke away from the fabric during washing would need to biodegrade when released into the natural environment.

The innovation

Trash-2-Cash fibre scientists were able to modify the Ioncell-F technology to regenerate cotton waste into new, super-fine fibres that replicate the softness of polyester fleece but without the plastic pollution. The manufacturers knitted and brushed the biodegradable fabric to produce a super-soft natural fleece-like fabric perfect for a baby. The non-bleached, colour-retaining technology also used in the 0° shirt was used again here, making this a super-low-impact alternative to polyester fleece.

The Reborn - Reworn fabric is naturally soft and warm next to delicate skin without polluting us and our oceans with micro-plastics, a life-saving jacket for the future of our children.

Trash-2-Cash? About the project

As we all know, one resource that’s becoming more abundant is waste. The idea of recycling textile waste has been popular for decades, but current mechanical methods give poor quality fabrics suitable only for industrial applications, like insulation, and the upcycling of pre-consumer textile waste into products is impossible to scale.

Trash-2-Cash (T2C) proposes a new model where textile waste is regenerated chemically - resulting in new plastics and textiles that are the same quality as new materials, to make products that are industrially replicable and infinitely recyclable.

Come to our showcase at Klokgebouwduring Dutch Design Week 2018 and decide for yourselves whether we have been able to make trash in to cash!

The consortium:

Academic and industry designers have been collaborating with scientists and engineers over the last three years to produce these new materials from textile waste. It’s a project that is as much about the way in which these people collaborate as what they have produced together.

The 18 partners from 10 countries are showing six brand new material prototypescomprised of new, recycled and recyclable apparel and automotive materials and concepts. We are also sharing a new way of working – Design-Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) – outlining how science, design and industry can input into the process from beginning to end.

In October of each year, Dutch Design Week (DDW) takes place in Eindhoven. The biggest design event in Northern Europe presents work and ideas of more than 2600 designers to more than 335,000 visitors from home and abroad. In more than hundred locations across the city, DDW organises and facilitates exhibitions, lectures, prize ceremonies, networking events, debates and festivities.